


sugar sweet, come find me, would you?

by nonbinarywithaknife (littleboxes)



Series: dimension 20 [61]
Category: Dimension 20 (Web Series)
Genre: (it isn't super bad but it ain't great), Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Campaign 05: A Crown of Candy, Courtship, F/M, Fluff, Gen, Light Angst, Non-Graphic description of birth, Romance, Romantic Fluff, Wartime Romance, Weddings, medieval treatment of women pregnant out of wedlock cw, ripple effects of time travel, roadtrip! (basically), the inherent lack of sleep involved with one year old children
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-07
Updated: 2020-08-12
Packaged: 2021-03-06 07:47:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,107
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25759837
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/littleboxes/pseuds/nonbinarywithaknife
Summary: In which Catherine Ghee, notably, does not die from illness, nor does she die at all. (Or- any time soon, at least.)
Relationships: Catherine Ghee & Theobald Gumbar, Catherine Ghee/Amethar Rocks
Series: dimension 20 [61]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1706107
Comments: 47
Kudos: 60





	1. a good man is hard to find

**Author's Note:**

> don't flirt with people who are working, kids  
> chapter title is from maker of my sorrow by eliza rickman

_Highdusk, 1191. Mid winter._

When Catherine looks up from the bundle of string cheese she’s wrapping to see a Candian soldier standing at the counter, instead of asking _How can I help you?_ or _What do you need?_ her traitorous mouth says, _Oh, hello_. 

As the seconds tick by and the soldier stares at her with wide eyes and she stares back with a pasted on smile of panic, she prays for the Bulb to take her away because she’s really done it now, but instead the soldier just _keeps_ staring at her until he’s elbowed in the side by one of his friends and he snaps out of whatever trance he was in. 

Then he takes her hand and she _lets_ him and he _kisses it_ and all of this is _horribly_ improper but instead of snatching her hand away and shoving him out, which would be _well_ within her rights, and he wouldn’t even be the first soldier she's done it to, she just stares at him, blushing. 

He smiles at her and says, _My name’s Amethar_ and Catherine chuckles and asks, _Like the prince? Sounds like your parents had high hopes for you_. 

The soldier laughs and it’s loud and booming and so full of joy that Catherine can’t help the way her stomach swoops. Her eyes trail along his face as his shoulders shake, and she is terribly aware that these feelings are a bad idea and will only lead to heartbreak, she’s _seen_ the other girls in town who make moon eyes at the pretty soldier boys, she’s _knows_ what’s going to happen, and _yet-_

As Amethar says, still laughing, _Yeah, like the prince_ , someone from outside yells _Rocks! Come on, we don’t have all day!_ and Amethar winks at her as he leaves and the bundle of string cheese is utterly forgotten as Catherine runs to the back to shake her sister by the shoulders and dazedly say, _Lis, did the prince of Candia just flirt with me?_

The next day Catherine spends her shift plucking petals from savarin daisies and daydreaming, much to the chagrin of Lis, until the door opens and the one person she didn’t think she’d see again enters. 

Amethar sees her and waves awkwardly and she laughs, and he comes up to the counter and says, _I never actually got to ask, yesterday, but what’s your name?_ and Catherine knows her cheeks are darkening and she says, _What’s my name to a prince?_ and maybe it isn’t the best decision to be smart to a _prince_ but she’s always fallen back on sharpness when she’s surprised.

Instead of getting angry, though, Amethar looks surprised, and pleased, and then he smiles again, and Catherine thinks that smile just might kill her, the way it feels like the tides are crashing over her head every time he flashes it at her. He rests an elbow on the counter and leans forward and says, _I’m only fourth in line, you know_ , and he says it like _only_ matters when you're _royalty_ , like being in line for a throne is as simple as being the first one to find a ripe apple tree and getting the freshest pick rather than something Catherine can’t even imagine, and Catherine looks into his eyes and realizes she’s falling in love and she says, _Well, I suppose if you’re only fourth in line…_

Amethar stays until Mrs Pardano comes back and shoos him away, but as he leaves Catherine slips a sheet of parchment into his hand and a few minutes later Amethar opens the note in the privacy of his tent to see the words,

_Meet me at the west coastline at midnight? - Catherine Ghee_

The rest of the day Manta Ray Jack teases him about the girl he’s going to see and Amethar shoves him in the shoulder and smiles like a sap all the while.

Midnight comes and Amethar is not very good at sneaking out and Catherine Ghee is better at it than her sister expected, and they’ll meet on the coastline and sit on the sand and feel the yogurt tides rise and fall against their toes and they’ll talk until the barest hints of the Bulb have begun to rise in the sky. 

They’ll both go back to their respective proper places and the next night they’ll come back to the shoreline and they’ll come back again and again and again and again, until it’s been three months and Amethar has become a common fixture at the Ghee Apothecary, until it’s been four months and Catherine waves at Manta Ray Jack on her way past the camp when she runs errands; they’ll keep meeting until it’s been five months and Amethar and Catherine are lying together on the sand and the Bulb is rising in the sky and she has to get back to open the shop and Amethar has to get back to camp before drills start, but instead of doing that he’ll turn to Catherine and take her hands in his and say, _Catherine, I love you._

After he does this, Catherine will squeeze his hands and say, _Amethar, we should get married_ , and Amethar will ask, _How do you always know what I’m gonna say before I say it?_ and Catherine will ask, _Is that a yes?_ and Amethar will say, _I mean, yeah!_

It will be several minutes later when Catherine is running back to her home for the best dress she owns and Amethar is pulling on his cleanest uniform and dragging Manta Ray Jack out of bed and toward the church, and Catherine will knock on the church doors in her finest dress and Father Buttercream will smile at the young girl who he’s watched grow up be flushed with love and when she asks him for this favor he’ll acquiesce, despite the early hour and the edges of propriety they’re skirting. 

Amethar will arrive at the church and when he catches sight of Catherine standing at the altar in her best dress holding a bouquet of savarin daisies that still have dirt on the stems he’ll know in his heart that she is the most beautiful woman he’s ever seen, and when Catherine sees Amethar standing at the door of the church in his dress uniform, hair loose around his shoulders, looking at her like she’s all the moon and stars, she’ll know what it is to feel like a princess.

Neither of them will say any vows because the love they see reflected in the other’s eyes speaks louder than anything either of them could say, and Catherine will say _I do_ and Amethar will say _I do_ and as Father Buttercream pronounces them man and wife there won’t be any confetti to throw or crowds of well-wishers, but there will be Manta Ray Jack, wiping a tear from his eye and clapping Amethar on the back and welcoming Catherine to the family, and he'll take out his stick and poke kit and a few hours later Catherine is late to her shift at the shop and Amethar and Manta Ray are going to be in for it, but Amethar and Catherine have matching daisy chains around their ring fingers. The yellow pops on Amethar's pink and the opposite is true for Catherine, and it's not proper by any measure but Catherine thinks that she never would have been happy with proper, and they spend the rest of the day sequestered from the world, and for just one day they’ll forget about the war and about consequences and about everything but each other.

The bliss of newlyweds will last for a week, until one day Amethar doesn’t come into the apothecary and Catherine has no ring to twist nervously around her finger but she’ll feel make the motion anyway, and a knot of worry start to grow in her belly. She’ll head out to collect swiss ferns and she’ll wander the fields with basket in hand for hours and when she returns to the shop she won't see Amethar but instead, a note left on the counter. 

It will be written in Amethar’s chicken-scratch hand it will say:

_We’re leaving today. Just got word. I love you. I’ll be back._

It won’t be signed and Catherine will feel ghee-golden tears well up in her eyes and she’ll hide in the back of the shop amongst the storage crates until her hands stop shaking, and all the while she’ll tell herself she should’ve known this would happen and she’ll tell herself that she’ll get over it like all the girls who moon over the pretty soldier boys do, even as she knows that she won’t.

Two months later, Catherine Ghee will learn that Amethar didn’t just leave a note, and this time when she hides in the back room of the apothecary, as hard as she tries, she can’t make her hands stop shaking.

Mrs Pardano will eye Catherine’s growing belly with a frown and a _tsk_ of disappointment, and Catherine’s father won’t look at her and Catherine’s mother will smile at her but it won’t hide the shame, and Catherine has nothing else to do but wait and work the counter and wait and wander the fields collecting herbs and wait. 

Nine months of waiting and it’s 1192 and Catherine is sitting in a stiff wooden chair behind the counter when there’s a horrible pain in her belly and she _knows_. 

Catherine gives birth alone in the back room of the apothecary with nobody but Mrs Pardano who shows her how to lie down and drops a sachet of herbs at her side and tells her to pray and then leaves. 

She’s too busy screaming to pray but after several hours of blood and sweat and tears and screaming, the air is broken by another person’s high-pitched wails, and Catherine will hold her daughter against her chest and think of crooked smiles and _too charming for his own good_ and she’ll name her _Saccharina_.


	2. my flight for the sun

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Catherine, Saccharina, Theo, and Toby head back to Castle Candy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yeah so. there's gonna be a chapter three. oops. it's about half the length of ch1&2, but shoving it into chapter two just Did Not Work, so. yay?  
> chapter title is from the acoustic version of will i find my home by juniper vale

_Harvestbright,1192. Late spring._

Catherine is tidying up the counter when the knock comes- not that there’s much to tidy up. As the months passed, more people left to join the navy, and the apothecary is surviving less on business and more on the fact that their town is small enough the collectors can’t be bothered to come round routinely. She laughs quietly to herself as she thinks, _at least I’ll always have the ever present need for laundry bleach and dye to keep us afloat._

She ignores it, at first. Whoever is there knows when she opens, and can wait a few more minutes while she cleans. Not to mention, Saccharina has decided to sleep in today, which means Catherine gets a few more hours of Bulb-blessed quiet.

But then, it comes again, harder against the cheese-wood this time. She can feel her blood freeze. That is what armor sounds like against wood. There is no reason for soldiers to be here, _none_ , except- Catherine looks back toward the rooms that Saccharina is sleeping peacefully in, and then back at the door. 

She stomps the hope out of her heart- why would he come now? After a year of nothing? No. It’s not him, it will never be him, and with her luck it’s probably the collectors come for tax she doesn’t have.

She opens the door, only to be greeted with a shadow. She looks up, into the face of. Well. Not the tax collectors, certainly, and not a soldier of any kind she recognizes, and she prays to the Bulb that they are merely asking her for directions.

“Is this Catherine Ghee’s residence?” asks the taller one, and Catherine feels as though she’s swallowed her tongue. They aren’t soldiers, but they are Candian. They know her name, they’re _here_ and she can’t help it when her eyes are drawn to the broadswords at their side. She has a walking stick only feet away. They wouldn’t expect it, just one good swing at their heads and she’ll have time, to run for Saccharina, and then _away_ -

“We’re just here to speak with her,” says the other, and Catherine realizes they’re still standing in the doorway. There’s no escaping this.

“Come in, then,” she says, “I don’t usually entertain guests, so forgive the lack of seating.”

They share a look, and she crosses her arms. 

“Well? You’re here to speak with Catherine Ghee? She’s listening.”

The shorter one speaks, and as he does Catherine feels like she’s in a dream. She stares at him, but he doesn’t disappear in a puff of smoke. She’s left with silence and his words. 

_The Archmage Lazuli sent us to find you. There is a place at court for you._ They don’t say it, but the thought loops through Catherine’s head: _Amethar has not forgotten you_.

Before she can respond in any coherent way, there’s a cry from the back. The two men- knights, _knights!_ reach for their weapons, but Catherine is already turning. 

“I- excuse me, for a moment.”

She returns a few minutes later with Saccharina in her arms. The knights stare, wide eyed, at her. She rolls her shoulders and stares back at them, steel in her eyes. 

“You said there is a place for me. Is there a place at court for the both of us?”

The knights share another look, and the taller one turns back to face her. 

“There is. Do you agree to take it?”

Catherine thinks about her failing apothecary. About the likelihood of finding work anywhere here, in this fading town. (About the way the wind moves around Saccharina in ways that are strange and frightening to witness. The way that even barely a year old, Saccharina’s eyes glow with a power that Catherine doesn’t understand. About how Amethar spoke about the magic of his homeland with a casual wonder she’d never thought too deeply about, until storms began to roll in as her infant cried.)

“When do we leave?”

  
  


As it turns out, the answer is as soon as Catherine can arrange her things. She should probably feel sadder about how little time it takes, but as she hands the key and the deed to the apothecary to a confused Tessarine Pardano, everything of value she owns- depressingly little- on her back, Saccharina in her arms, Catherine feels nothing but free. 

Fearful about how Saccharina will take to the journey, yes, nervous about what Amethar will think of her after all all these months, yes, but above everything, as she walks between Sir Toby and Sir Theobald onto the waiting ship, Catherine Ghee feels _free_. Free from the weight of the stares and the whispers and the pity, free from the guilt and the anger and the slowly growing bitterness. 

Over the weeks it takes to get from Mull to Crumble to the Candian mainland, Sir Theobald tells her about the castle. _Castle_. Even that, is hard to imagine. He tells her about the courtyards that must be the size of the Lord’s home, to be full of everything he describes. The throne room, the entry hall, the feast hall; he tells her about the wing of the castle that will be hers- a wing! Catherine thinks of the apothecary, with its storage room and the kitchen and her bedroom, and how having even that had felt like a luxury. 

He tells her about the chapel, too, when she asks. He mentions offhandedly that it’s one of Citrina’s favorite places, and Catherine has to take a moment to breathe, at the reminder that she won’t just be meeting Amethar’s family, but the _Rocks Sisters_ \- what will they think of her?

A peasant woman married to their princely brother? Lazuli ordered her found, yes, but what of the soon to be queen, General Rococoa? Will she spare a glance for Catherine? The beloved Princess Sapphria, Catherine wonders, will she bother to learn Catherine’s name? Perhaps her fears are ungrounded, but she thinks about attending the same chapel as the Miracle Worker Citrina and feels her breath be stolen away. 

When he isn’t telling her stories about Castle Candy, Sir Theobald offers to watch Saccharina for her. The first time he offers, Catherine says _no_ instinctively, the familiar fear of what they’ll say about the- the _magic_ that surrounds her daughter. But then she looks at him, Sir Theobald, remembers _Archmage_ Lazuli and she pauses. 

She makes sure that the door is closed and that Sir Toby is busy on the deck before she sits on a stool and confides her fears to Sir Theobald. 

She tells him about how the things had been little, at first. Just… a bottle getting knocked over, if Catherine took too long to turn her attention to a bored Saccharina. How it progressed, how even within a year Saccharina calls storms and creates snow and by the end of it she’s shaking, pressing Saccharina close to her chest. 

“Your- the Archmage, you said? She knows about this- this magic? It isn’t… it’s not the Hungry One’s influence, is it?”

The words leave her mouth dry with fear, because it can’t be. It _can’t_ be, her beautiful daughter is so small, so innocent, she can’t be touched by something so horrible. And yet, Catherine thinks of what her parents, what Father Buttercream warned her of. She thinks, and she is afraid, until there is a paw on her shoulder, and Sir Theobald explains. 

He tells her, “I don’t know much of magic, not as much as L- the Archmage, for certain. But I can tell you this, Catherine, and I swear it on the vows I took under the light of the Bulb to serve my country: Saccharina’s magic is _not_ bad. It is not the work of the Hungry One. It’s powerful, more powerful than anything I’ve ever seen. But once we get to Castle Candy, the Archmage will have more answers for you. You aren’t alone in this, anymore.”

Catherine can feel herself crying tears of relief, and for the first time in months she can look into her daughter’s eyes and feel only joy, unmixed with an undercurrent of fear, of shame. 

It’s after this, that she allows Sir Theobald to watch Saccharina for her, whenever the need for solitude takes her. It’s not often. For most of the journey, Catherine is content to lie in her hammock- something she’d taken to with surprisingly little adjustment, but then, Catherine Ghee has loved exactly two things in her life more than she loves novelty, and she’s holding one in her arms- and chronicle her thoughts in a diary. It’s a new habit, but by the time they dock at Port Syrup, one she’s grown deeply fond of. 

Port Syrup is- different. Wonderfully, overwhelmingly, _different_ than Catherine’s small town, the streets are filled with people of all sorts, and as she looks to the horizon she sees the skyline filled with more buildings, and so when she sees the church, almost unchanged from the one she grew up with, it’s a breath of fresh air.

They stay there for a day, and then continue on to Castle Candy. Saccharina spends the trip cranky, upset at the change, and on the second day of their trip, when Catherine thinks she’s going to be hearing Saccharina’s screaming cries in her sleep for eternity, and she just needs _three minutes_ of peace, that Theobald takes Saccharina from her and she quiets _instantly_. All three of them freeze, and Catherine’s expression of relief is mirrored by Sir Toby’s look of amusement. 

“Sir Theobald, you are _far_ more magical than you give yourself credit for,” Catherine says, before curling up on an unopened bedroll and getting several hours of uninterrupted sleep for the first time in _months_.


	3. my bones have found a place to lie down and sleep

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Catherine arrives at Castle Candy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> chapter title from smother by daughter

It’s a few days later, when Catherine, Theo, and Toby arrive at Castle Candy. The first time Toby points out its silhouette on the horizon, Catherine is breathless. The castle _towers_ over them, and the Bulb’s light reflects off the pink candy-stone and the sprinkled rooftops, making it _sparkle_. 

Saccharina warbles in her arms, and Catherine holds her close. 

Theobald leads her through the front gate, and she can only be thankful there is no procession to meet her. No grand entrance. As breathtaking as the castle is, Catherine doesn’t know how she would process anything more. 

As she walks through the doors, she sees servants catch her eye. She waves to them and their eyes widen, and she hears them whisper as she passes. 

She’s led through halls filled with frosted paintings and sugar spun tapestries and wall sconces that gleam crystalline, and as they pass a bench wrought in painful detail from hard candy that Catherine is pretty sure costs more than her _home_ , they begin up a staircase.

They spend several minutes walking up it, and just as Catherine, despite her lack of experience with towers, is reasonably sure they’ve walked higher than the tower _goes_ , they arrive at a door. 

Theobald knocks, waits a moment, and then opens the door, looking vaguely pained as he does so. Toby leans over to her and whispers, _Lazuli gave him permission to enter without knocking ages ago, but he refused to do it, so she just started refusing to answer the door._

Catherine laughs, and then her attention is grabbed by the room. 

It’s _filled_ with books. The shelves that surround them are twice Catherine’s height, and she can’t imagine how anyone reaches them. 

She starts to ask Theobald what to do next, but she’s interrupted by the sound of voices heading toward them. 

It sounds like arguing, and as they get closer she can finally make out the words and she freezes, because she _knows_ that voice, even after all of this-

“What am I even doing here, Laz, you said you needed me to meet some-”

Amethar turns the corner, and he freezes. He barely hears his sister behind him, saying, _ah, you’ve arrived. I’m glad to see that it was today, instead of yesterday_ , because he’s looking into his wife’s eyes for the first time in- in, his thought doesn’t even have time to finish because there’s a faint burble and Amethar looks away from Catherine to the bundle in her arms, the bundle that is wriggling, and he takes one step forward and then another and then another, until he has his arms wrapped around his wife for the first time in a _year_ , and he doesn’t squeeze her tightly and swing her around in the air like he so badly wants to, because there’s a _baby_ in her arms, and he looks back into her face and he doesn’t even have to ask- he’s never needed to ask, not with Catherine, never with Catherine, they’ve always felt like two halves of a whole- she nods and she says, voice wavering only a little with disbelief and delight, “Amethar, meet Saccharina.”

_Saccharina_. Amethar looks at her, at his _daughter_ , and then he looks back at his wife and he laughs, and holds them, and he’s crying and Catherine’s crying and Saccharina is just looking at them both, blue eyes sparkling, and Amethar could spend forever like this. 

Of course, they can’t, and their reunion is cut short when Lazuli steps forward. 

“You’ll have to be introduced to the court, but Caramelinda has already offered to help you with that. I’ve arranged for your things to be brought to Amethar’s quarters, is there anything else you need?”

Catherine doesn’t want to break this, the warmth of Amethar’s arms around her, but there are things to be done. 

“I- yes, one thing. Theobald, he said- you’re a mage?”

Lazuli blinks, tilts her head. 

“I am the Archmage of Candia, yes.”

Catherine breathes. “It’s Saccharina. She has… I don’t understand it. But she can do things, magical things. Can you… help her, teach her, somehow?”

Lazuli is staring at her intently, now, and she nods. 

“What has she done- exactly, please.”

Catherine explains the storms, the snow, the unexplainable things. She feels like a schoolchild again, mucking her way through an explanation of things she doesn’t understand, but Lazuli doesn’t mock her. Merely nods, and occasionally plucks a book from thin air to write in it, which Catherine tries not to find unsettling and fascinating both. 

Finally, her explanation finishes, and there’s a vague upturn to Lazuli’s lips that Catherine would almost call a smile.

“I have read about this, although there is less written about it than I would like. Congratulations to you both, because your daughter is a sorceress.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this isn't the last we'll see catherine and saccharina, don't worry ;)


End file.
